Flag City on Fumes

The shimmering light drew me around the Loop, from the 5-mile mark at which Delta Bay sits to Highway 12.  I turned east, towards Lodi, gambling on the ten miles to Flag City and the direction in which my morning appointment took me.  I could have gone west, a half-dozen miles to Rio Vista and gas.  The glowing icon on my dashboard chided me for the gross oversight of forgetting to stop before groceries last night, after my appointment, on the Solano County side of the bridge.

I headed east.  I don’t care for back-tracking.  Move forward.  Always.

I made it to Flag City on fumes.  Two pumps had canvas covers and signs apologizing for their unavailability.  I stopped next to the third and struggled to see the screen in the dazzle of the day.  A man by a red Ford truck bigger than my front porch smiled as I fooled with the nozzle.  I chose to assume that he liked my look and wasn’t laughing at me.

A pleasant hum greeted me back on the highway.  My gauge thanked me for the stop as the car surged forward, into traffic.  I found myself smiling.  I had put 13.5 gallons into a 15-gallon tank.  I could have gotten all the way to Lodi.  Once more, I had beaten the odds.  My record improves by leaps and bounds.  At the rate my luck has been changing, I might buy my first lottery ticket soon.

It’s the twenty-second day of the fifty-seventh month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

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